Episode 2 John Bishop's Britain

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to John Bishop's Britain.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

On each show, I'll be looking at a different subject that affects everyone in Britain.

And tonight, it's growing up.

That's supposed to be the happiest time of your life. Although it doesn't always feel like that.

It would've depressed me immensely when I was five years old and wet myself in the school playground

if someone had come up to me and said, "Enjoy yourself, son, this is as good as it gets".

LAUGHTER

To help me understand what that subject means to Britain,

I've interviewed hundreds of British people about it.

Some of them you'll know, some of them you may not.

This is a taster of what we've got to look forward to from them tonight.

-That's the most impressive thing you can do.

-Ever.

-I just...

-And worm around.

-Stop doing that immediately!

Yes! HE LAUGHS

LAUGHTER

There'll be more words of wisdom from them later.

As well as the odd sketch that explains what's going on in my head.

So, growing up. I'm assuming everyone around here grew up in Manchester.

Is that right or wrong? Yes? No?

-Where did you grow up, mate?

-Huddersfield.

-Huddersfield? That's not really fair, is it?

-LAUGHTER

To be honest, if you've come from Huddersfield,

-I can see why you're still dressed in the 70s.

-LAUGHTER

-What's your name?

-Mark.

-Do you still live in Huddersfield?

-No.

-How old were you when you left?

-It's not that hard, Mark.

-LAUGHTER

-30.

-You left when you were 30?

-Yes.

-So you've been away, what, a fortnight?

-LAUGHTER

-Close.

-Cos I thought you were going to say, "I left when I was 12" or something

and then I was going say, "What was the happiest memory you've got about growing up in Huddersfield?"

-I could've picked anyone in this audience.

-LAUGHTER

But I had to pick someone who can't even remember his own life!

LAUGHTER

There must have been something good, Mark. It's Huddersfield!

-The pubs.

-LAUGHTER

The best thing about being a kid in Huddersfield

-was the pubs.

-LAUGHTER

-They used to sell sweets.

-The pubs used to sell sweets?

So that's where alcopops was invented.

They used to put your sherbet dips in the pint of bitter and go, "Go on, son, it's a cocktail".

-LAUGHTER

-Who have you come with, Mark?

-I've come with Joanne.

-And Joanne, are you from Huddersfield?

-Erm, no.

-LAUGHTER

You can carry on if you want, Joanne.

I'm from Halifax, which is just down the road from Huddersfield.

-LAUGHTER

-I tell you what, hey-hey!

You're the Torvill and Dean of Yorkshire, aren't you?

-So how did you two meet?

-In a pub in Huddersfield.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

We were skint when I was growing up, and I don't mean, like, pretend skint,

-I don't mean like, "Me plasma's not big" skint.

-LAUGHTER

-Properly skint. I used to watch Swap Shop and have nothing to swap.

-LAUGHTER

I'd be sat there, there'd be some kid from Chester trying to swap a bicycle and a pair of roller skates,

I'd have Connect Four with three pieces in.

LAUGHTER

As I say, I was born in Liverpool and I didn't grow up in Liverpool.

What happened with us is, we were living in a house in Liverpool and they knocked it down.

-They phoned us up first.

-LAUGHTER

They said, "We're going to knock your house down".

They took all these big parts of the middle of Liverpool, and they did it with a lot of northern cities,

they knocked the middle down and they picked up all these Scousers and they moved them to spill towns,

these council estates in places like Speke and Kirkby,

and they put us in a place called Runcorn.

-It was probably the first sign of ethnic cleansing.

-LAUGHTER

And they dropped us in this place called Runcorn.

If you've ever been to Runcorn, it's a world away from Liverpool when you first arrive there

cos it was surrounded by fields. We didn't know what to expect.

I remember going out with my brother when we first arrived

and him walking up to the cows in the fields going, "Look at the size of the dogs here".

LAUGHTER

We just didn't know what to expect. But like everybody else, I followed the lead of my brother,

cos brothers and sisters play an essential part in your life, particularly if you're from Norwich

-where they could also be your parents.

-LAUGHTER

So what did the people of Britain have to say about their siblings?

Me and my sister used to fight all the time.

-Me and my brother used to fight about everything.

-It was clothes or...

CD player, CDs, even girls.

We used to squabble about anything. Like most children,

we squabbled about nothing.

-He'd beat me up, give me a dead arm, lock me in the cupboard.

-I got locked in a drawer.

-He was pretty nasty.

-He threatened to burn my willy off with a lighter.

We were never really that bad when it came to fights

but when we did, it'd be the toys that would get it.

We used to steal her dolls and hang them from trees.

I just grabbed her favourite Barbie and ripped a leg off it and threw it down a drain.

Give them a little bomber's vest of French bangers,

douse them in petrol, set it all off, film it...

And we called that Vietnam Barbie, which pissed her off no end.

And then, in the morning when she comes down, we put the video on of it being burnt.

It's nice things like that that you do. It was very nice.

APPLAUSE

But sibling rivalry is important.

I married a woman who's an only child, which you should never do if you've got brothers and sisters

cos she just does not understand the role of a dead leg in a relationship.

LAUGHTER

And also for me, cos my brother's five years older than me,

so he led everything that happened in my life.

In fact, these teeth, these things here, which actually look all right now,

they fit now, they're only there because of my brother.

Because my brother used to knock my teeth out and then put the tooth underneath his pillow...

-LAUGHTER

-..to get money.

So when I was five, he knocked all my teeth out.

So my big teeth came early.

So my head's had to grow around my teeth.

Honestly, my mum has got photographs of me

when I was about seven and I look like an appeal poster.

LAUGHTER

-Please help.

-LAUGHTER

But the day comes when you have to flee the nest and enter the real world

and that's the day that you go to school.

# It's a hard knock life

I don't look back at my school days with any affection whatsoever.

I just went to school to muck around, to be honest.

I'm mucking about, throwing things, making planes.

Answer all the teachers back, bunk off lessons, class clown.

Parents evening, for me, was always terrifying.

I would just be so...scared.

I got the cane for "infringing canteen regulation".

Dad just came back and he went, "Get inside".

Every teacher has said you're just...rubbish.

My teachers hated me. It's really weird, because I got the grades.

I got quite good marks in my reports, but effort was always E.

I was very lazy at school, so I did nothing.

Did no homework, did no GCSEs. And look at me now, I own a sweet shop!

APPLAUSE

That's lovely. He followed his childhood dream.

What boy of seven doesn't want to own a sweet shop?

He achieved it. But part of the social experiment that I lived through when I moved to Runcorn

meant that we went to a giant comprehensive.

My school was a giant comprehensive. They said, "You're all equal now". It wasn't like a grammar school.

"You're all the same, all equal, we're going to treat everybody exactly the same.

"But can you do us a favour? Can you go home and wrap your books up in wallpaper...

-LAUGHTER

-"..just so we can have a look inside your house?"

-LAUGHTER

-There is nothing more socially divisive

than walking into school on Monday morning with woodchip round your books!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And all the posh kids off the private estates with Anaglypta.

LAUGHTER

But the education system's different now.

I was about 12 or 13 when I was at school

and they phoned my mum and dad up and said, "Look, we think your John's dyslexic.

"Can you do us a favour? Can you make sure he can carry heavy stuff?"

LAUGHTER

And that's when living where I lived was such an advantage.

Cos my dad had higher aspirations than that. He wouldn't settle for that.

We got in the car, we drove half an hour,

-we got to the Welsh border.

-LAUGHTER

We got out at the Welsh border.

He pointed at the first road sign and he said, "There you go, son, you're not the only one".

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And it is true. I don't know if there's any Welsh people in here tonight, but God bless you.

Wales is there to give dyslexic people self-esteem.

I have an ambition that one day, I want to walk into a pub

in Wales in the middle of the Valleys

-and put Countdown on the television.

-LAUGHTER

Cos Countdown must make no sense to the Welsh.

When she puts the nine letters up, they must all look at each other and go, "Well, what's the game here?"

-LAUGHTER

-That's my mam's middle name.

LAUGHTER

There's also a massive issue now that never existed when we were kids

about this obesity epidemic.

They keep on saying we've got obesity in kids, it's come to epidemic proportions.

It's like we've got a fat kid epidemic. It's like it's a new thing.

It's not a new thing. When we were growing up,

-every class had a fat kid.

-LAUGHTER

Every class had a fat kid. Fat kids were evenly distributed.

You didn't go to school and there was one class with four fat kids and one class with no fat kids.

As the fat kids came in, the teachers went, "You're a fat kid, you go in that class,

"they need a fat kid in that class."

And you'd go up to him and say, "What's your name?" and he'd go, "It doesn't matter what my name is.

-"I'm the fat kid."

-LAUGHTER

There was always fat kids. There was. There was always fat kids.

I tell you want else there was that you don't see anymore, lazy eye.

-There was always a kid...

-LAUGHTER

There was always a kid with a lazy eye. If you're under 25, you will not believe the way we used to treat

kids with lazy eyes. The doctor used to say, "One of your eyes isn't working very well

"so what we're going to do is, we'll get the good eye and we'll put a patch on it."

-LAUGHTER

-"So now you can't see anything!"

There was kids with patches bouncing off everywhere,

waiting for their eye to stop being lazy.

There was always a kid with a lazy eye and there was always a kid with a big shoe.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

What happened? What happened to the kid with the big shoe?

Because I've never seen an adult with a big shoe.

And now there are no kids with big shoes.

In schools, you'll never see a kid with a big shoe. I don't know if the fat kids have eaten them...

LAUGHTER

The other thing that's changed as well is now, all you ever hear about with kids is bullying.

You hear about it a lot these days. And bullying is an issue.

Nobody suggests that bullying is good.

But we had bullying. We never had a white paper on it.

It wasn't discussed in parliament. We just got on with it.

It wasn't bullying on the internet, either, with people poking you and writing on your wall.

We had our own social networks. We all knew through our social network

that Jenny was a slag.

LAUGHTER

-Cos someone painted it on a real wall.

-LAUGHTER

Now... Now the issue is cyber-bullying.

Everyone's talking about cyber-bullying and how kids get upset when they're in their bedrooms

and someone says something about them on Facebook and cyber-bullying's a bad thing.

You're at a computer! Turn it off!

-LAUGHTER

-I'll tell you what bullying is. Having your head down a bog

with the chain being flushed by sixth formers shouting, "Gaylord, gaylord, gaylord".

LAUGHTER

When water's running through your ears and out of your nose, you can't bleeding turn it off.

-Stop crying!

-LAUGHTER

-And I'm talking about a real bog, as well, not a cyber-bog.

-LAUGHTER

But there's this issue of bullying, and we've all become sensitive about it. Almost over-sensitive.

We've got to deal with it in a different way. Parents have got to sit their kids down and say,

"Are you really being bullied or are you just shit at fighting?"

LAUGHTER

I'm not saying... Listen, I'm not belittling bullying.

I was bullied as a kid and it was a hard thing. I remember going home to my dad, I was about 11,

and it's a brave thing to tell your parents you're being bullied.

I said, "Dad..." He said, "What, son?"

I said, "I'm getting bullied at school, Dad."

He said, "What is it, son? Is it your big teeth?" I said, "No, it's not, Dad."

LAUGHTER

He said, "Is it those hand-me-down clothes that you've got on,

"that mad haircut or the fact that you're a bit fatter than the rest of the kids?" I said, "No, Dad."

He said, "Is it your lisp or the fact that you've got a little bit of a limp when you walk

"or you're not very good at football?" I said, "No, Dad."

He said, "Well, to be fair, they're not going for the obvious, are they?"

LAUGHTER

But bullying was only part of life when you're a child.

The most intense social situation has got to be the birthday party.

When we used to have kids' parties outside of school,

it used to be a chance to let loose. It was mental.

I was not your typical invitee to a children's party.

I was quite a disruptive child.

At the end, they'd calm you down, take you off the lemonade and play sleeping lions

but I'd think, "Bollocks" and run around.

I was one of those kids that'd sit in a little plastic car and go round in circles for hours screaming.

As a child, I can't remember going to a birthday party or having any.

But I go to lots now.

There was one children's entertainer that we particularly liked

who would come in a little pink van and was slightly creepy.

The parents would put me in the garden with the entertainer who would freak me out.

More often than not, they'd smell. They'd probably been on the booze the night before.

He used to start his act by asking all the children to be quiet and to sit down.

These people weren't vetted. They were just found in the village yellow book.

And then he'd say, "I'm now going to sing you a song" and he'd go,

-# A tompy-hompy-bomp

-It could've been anyone.

# Humpy-dee-dee, humpy-dumpy-pumpy-pump

-Sit down!

-They scare me...

-Stop doing that immediately!

..so much that I think, if someone invited me to a children's party now, I'd have to turn it down.

I don't think the children enjoyed it very much, no,

but I know the parents did.

APPLAUSE

Let's be honest, that's what children's parties are about.

About paying a stranger to come and shout at your own kids.

The problem with kids' parties now, they're different than what they used to be.

You used to go to the kids' party, you brought a present, you went home.

Now you bring kids to the party,

when they come, they give a present, when they go, YOU have got to give THEM a present!

YOU have got to give THEM a goody bag.

When did that begin, that we've got to give the kid who comes to your house,

who scared the shit out of the dog,

was sick all over the place, who never shut up crying all day,

and you've got to give him a present? You don't do that in any other walk of life.

You don't go into a restaurant and say, "That was a lovely meal, I've baked you a cake."

And the problem is, as well, you don't get to vet who comes.

Your kid invites them. And that means that you always get the nutter kid.

The lunatic. The one who will not get off the bouncy castle.

The one who's pushing all the other kids off and you keep on saying,

"Oh, come on, Trevor, come off the bouncy castle." And he's going, "No..."

-LAUGHTER

-Come on, then we'll... "No, I'm staying here."

"Come on or I'll have to come on and get you."

"Oh, go on, then! Come on!"

-And then you accidentally fall.

-LAUGHTER

And then his dad comes to pick him up and you say, "I'm sorry, he banged his head"

and his dad goes, "That's funny, he seems to do that at most parties".

LAUGHTER

And in his eye, he's looking at you thinking, "You've clocked him one, haven't you?"

LAUGHTER

And you're looking back going, "You know I've clocked him one, but I've probably saved you a job".

-LAUGHTER

-In all honesty, we have this phrase now "cotton wool kids"

cos all kids in this country are pampered now. Pampered beyond belief.

When my lads were little, I took them to the park.

I remember taking them to the park for the first time with some of their mates and my wife said,

"Look, you've got our kids, you've got some other kids,

"make sure you look after all the kids, that they don't fall over and get hurt."

And I went, "Well, what's the point of taking them to the park?"

It's what you go to the park for, to fall over and get hurt.

There'll be people in this room now, like me, who've still got tarmac in your knee from the 80s.

-LAUGHTER

-It's how you learn life. It's how you learnt about things.

It's how you learnt about disappointment.

It's how you managed to get over the pain of a wife leaving you for a fireman in later life,

-because you fell off a roundabout when you were seven.

-LAUGHTER

-But I told my kids...

-HE LAUGHS

-LAUGHTER

-That's not even a joke, that's just feelings.

LAUGHTER

But I took my kids to the park when we moved to this new area,

I took them to the park for the first time with their new mates and we went into the park

and I took them to go on the swings and the roundabout.

I knew they might fall off but it didn't matter.

Do you know what was in the park when I got there?

-A sponge floor.

-LAUGHTER

It's what they put in the park now, a sponge floor!

And then wonder why the parks of full of teenagers of a night getting pissed.

-It's cos when they're pissed, they fall over and bounce back up!

-LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And this became even more apparent to me recently because I've been doing this big tour.

Before I came to do this show, I was on tour, I was away a lot.

So I said when I get home, I'm going to spend some time with the family and do the family stuff.

And we've got a relatively new dog, a English bull terrier,

and we got this dog from a dogs' home.

And if you've ever been to a dogs' home, it's a desperate thing to do.

You walk along, there's all the dogs in the cages. They're all barking, yapping.

They're all looking at you, going, "Pick me, pick me, pick me".

It's a bit like Amsterdam.

LAUGHTER

-Without the suspenders.

-LAUGHTER

But you walk along and there's all these dogs desperate to be picked.

As we came along, there was one dog in a cage at the end and he was just looking at us.

He said, "Look, you don't want me.

"I'm an English bull terrier.

"Families don't want English bull terriers.

"Skinheads want English bull terriers.

"So there's no point barking, cos you're not going to pick me.

"I'm going to be kept until someone comes along who wants me to fight another dog

"or wants me to walk around to make him look hard cos he's got a very little penis."

LAUGHTER

"So I know you're not going to pick me,

"so just keep walking, go on. You just keep going.

-"All the puppies are that way. Go on, keep going."

-LAUGHTER

I thought, "Sod that, a talking dog! When are you going to get one of them?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So we got this dog. I thought, "This is great, we've got this dog". The dog's been brilliant.

It's been at home all the time while I've been on tour. So when I stopped touring I said to my missus,

"I'm going to do dog duty". When I was growing up, on the estate I grew up on,

-taking the dog for a walk was opening the door, going, "Go on".

-LAUGHTER

That was how you took the dog for a walk. The dog barked when it had finished.

That was the dog walking. Now we're middle class, I had it on a lead and everything.

I said, "I'm going to take you out on the lead."

I was walking out of the house, my wife said, "Where's your bags?"

-LAUGHTER

-I said, "What for?" She said, "For the dog."

-I said, "I'm taking him for a walk, I'm not carrying him.

-LAUGHTER

She said, "No, you need to take the dog and you need to take the plastic bags

"because if the dog dirties, you need to pick it up."

-LAUGHTER

-I went, "What?"

She said, "You need to pick it up." Now, I understand that. But it was the reason behind it.

In the park that we've got, there's big signs saying that you must pick up the dog dirt,

there's an instant £80 fine,

because if you don't pick up it,

there's a chance a kid could fall in it, get dog dirt on their finger

and then rub that dog dirt in their eye,

and from a condition called toxoplasmosis,

potentially go blind.

-Now, I think that's health and safety gone a little bit mad.

-LAUGHTER

When did kids start rubbing dog shit in their eyes?

LAUGHTER

How many people ever went to school and said, "What's happened to Billy?" "Oh, it's dog-shit eye."

LAUGHTER

It never happened! It never happened!

As far as I'm concerned, you fall over, you've got dog shit on your finger,

you bring that finger past your own nose

and still rub it in your eye, there was a good chance you were going to go blind anyway!

-LAUGHTER

-As far as I'm concerned, that's natural selection.

LAUGHTER

But there comes a time when parties with bouncy castles

aren't the most important thing in life.

The most important thing is being a teenager and looking cool.

I wouldn't describe myself as a fashion leader.

But I always tried to just keep up a little bit.

The football kit was the main thing. The latest football kit.

White leather shoes were really in.

Nike was the rage then, so new Nike would impress everyone.

-I had clogs in every colour.

-I had a black bin bag on

which I'd cut a hole in for my head and my arms.

I also had a very awful pink and purple all-in-one jumpsuit.

I had a pair of Levi Strauss

topped off by a psychedelic, light green jersey.

I remember looking in the mirror and thinking,

"Nobody has ever looked this good."

Everybody had this mullet hairstyle and mine was wicked. Really cool.

I had a tub of gel. Superdrug, green.

Everybody said I had the best mullet. Everybody.

Straight back.

Right down to my bum, it was. Great.

Basically, I just looked like a big, ginger Mick Hucknall/John Lennon

roaming around the school.

-I thought I looked great.

-SHE LAUGHS

APPLAUSE

I think fashion's changed dramatically now.

Cos there used to be a time when your mum used to make your clothes.

You don't need that now, we've got Primark.

-LAUGHTER

-Mums have been outsourced to young kids in India.

LAUGHTER

What we used to have instead was hand-me-downs.

I've got one brother and two sisters. They're all older than me.

LAUGHTER

It wasn't that cool being 13 dressed as Siouxsie and the Banshees.

And my brother is five years older than me, our Eddie,

and I remember... The biggest fashion memory I've got

was being nine years of age

and I remember our Eddie getting a pair of white 22-inch flares

with a six-button belt.

It was like that and the flares went like that.

And I remember him standing at the top of the stairs, he was 14, I was nine,

and I remember thinking, "I can't wait until they're mine."

LAUGHTER

Obviously, fashion changes. By the time they fitted,

-my mum had used them for curtains.

-LAUGHTER

But it wasn't just clothes that were hand-me-downs.

Beds were hand-me-downs, as well. Double beds had a different life than what they do now.

We didn't have big shops selling beds.

A bed was a big investment. A bed was a family bed.

The double bed would come in, your mum and dad would use it.

After your mum and dad, it would go into another bedroom and two or three kids would sleep in it,

-and then it would go in the garden and be a trampoline.

-LAUGHTER

And for us, me and our Eddie got a double bed.

I was about eight years of age.

I was like a lot of eight-year-old boys, I was an occasional bed-wetter.

-LAUGHTER

-A little tip for any parents whose son is an occasional bed-wetter.

-Put him in bed with a brother five years older than him.

-LAUGHTER

Once you've had your head kicked in a few times,

-you soon remember to have a wee.

-LAUGHTER

You've got no defence when you're stood there in soaking pyjamas going, "It wasn't me".

LAUGHTER

But kids live in a different world now.

Now kids have got technology around, they've got iPhones, iPads, Xboxes, PlayStations.

The closest we ever got to an iPad was an Etch A Sketch.

-LAUGHTER

-And they can even get an App for your iPad that's an Etch A Sketch.

Why don't you just get an Etch A Sketch?

I had to sit down with one of my lads,

and he was nine when I did this, and I sat down with him

and he was talking about all the funky stuff that you can get now, he'd just got a PlayStation, I said,

"This was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me when I was a kid"

and I got a calculator and I wrote "BOOBS" on it.

LAUGHTER

-I said, "Look at that, son. Cowabunga!"

-LAUGHTER

-"Isn't your dad cool?"

-LAUGHTER

And then he took me and showed me the internet.

LAUGHTER

But as kids, we wouldn't have thought of doing that. The internet didn't exist.

As kids, what we had was simple games.

Girls went out into the street and skipped.

Boys went out into the street and chased each other with dog shit on a stick.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And the other thing we have that you always see in these retro programmes

and they've even tried to bring back, the other thing we had was space hoppers.

Space hoppers. And not just the occasional... We thought they were a mode of transport.

-LAUGHTER

-Space hoppers were fun! And it also meant

that you knew if you were too fat as a kid.

When everyone else on the street had a space hopper race and you sat on your space hopper

and everyone started and you ended up with a burst bag

and a couple of orange ears in your hand, you thought, "I need to shed a few pounds."

-LAUGHTER

-My kids are different. My kids are middle class kids.

My kids are posh, to be honest. I've got posh kids.

I can't even understand what they say.

We were having tea the other day, one of my lads came down and went, "Yah, Dad, yah.

"Chill. Ha-ha-ha. Excuse me, Pa, can you pass us the couscous?"

LAUGHTER

-And you think, "You're the kids I used to punch on the nose."

-LAUGHTER

And sometimes you forget.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But teenage years are dominated by thoughts of your next step

and that's the step into the world of sex,

starting with that all-important kiss.

And you know something is due to happen

when you start watching netball at school and thinking, "I want to get a grip of that wing attack."

LAUGHTER

My first kiss was at junior school under the climbing frame.

The first girl I kissed was in primary school.

It was in break time, round the back of the sports bins or something.

Beautiful blonde girl. She used to chase me round the playground, kiss-chase.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Kiss-chase.

And I'd never kissed anyone before, apart from my cousin's dog.

-It was about how long you could kiss for.

-We were kissing for two seconds.

I pulled away and ran to my friends and said, "Oh, my God, it's like...

-..a washing machine, just going round and round.

-Disgusting!

-Awful.

Absolutely the most awful thing in the world.

It was just like... Do you know what I mean, like, sick in my mouth.

The guy is now gay, I've since heard.

That's so rude.

It wasn't actually with a girl.

I think I might have practised a bit with my sister.

It was...a boy...

I was like, "This is going to happen, this is it."

I guess I was fantasising...

..that he was his sister.

I really thought you opened your mouth and stuck it in.

-Anything but romantic. It was like CPR.

-It was horrible, anyway. She had a tight little mouth.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Yeah, things are different. When you get older, you don't complain about stuff like that.

LAUGHTER

After listening to Bill, every boy with a good-looking sister is now looking at their mates

thinking, "Don't you dare." I've got to be honest, the reverse thing happened to me.

Genuinely, I copped off with my mate's sister. It was only one snog and then I thought,

-"You don't half look like Tommy."

-LAUGHTER

-Sorry, Tommy, I've never told you that before.

-LAUGHTER

Lots of us sat at the back of the class practising. That was the big thing.

We were in a different zone. You had to practise. Cos we didn't know what the first kiss was going to be like.

And you can pretend you didn't, but there's people here who did that.

-LAUGHTER

-You practised on the back of your hand.

That was the only way of practising.

LAUGHTER

Thinking that was going to be any good.

LAUGHTER

I even practised with the mirror.

You know why I practised with the mirror?

Because I was a kid. I could never understand, when you watched it on the television,

they all knew which way to tilt their heads.

-LAUGHTER

-They all seemed to know, didn't they?

And I thought, "I'm going to practise on the mirror." So I did.

-I practised on the mirror.

-LAUGHTER

The only problem with practising on the mirror is,

-when you tilt your head, so does your reflection.

-LAUGHTER

And my first kiss was with a girl called Jane.

And I'll never forget it. It was a lovely moment. I was about 12 or 13.

She said, "I've got you a present." It was my birthday coming up.

We were in a park. She said, "I've got something for you." I thought, "Great, Airfix."

LAUGHTER

It wasn't like that at all.

She leaned over, she leaned in.

The problem was, I'd been practising on a mirror.

So she went like that, I went like that.

-And as I said, my head hasn't always fitted my teeth.

-LAUGHTER

-It's only when a girl's crying with blood coming down her nose...

-LAUGHTER

-..that you think, "Maybe I got that one wrong."

-LAUGHTER

She was good to me, though, Jane. She said, "Can we have a French kiss next time?" so I said, "OK".

-I ate garlic for a week and just acted all arrogant.

-LAUGHTER

You never forget your first kiss.

I just look her up, not because I still fancy her or anything,

just I wonder where is she, what's she doing, what's she up to

and...where she is.

LAUGHTER

Let's be honest, if that girl's now watching the show,

-we all know she's going to feel a little bit scared.

-LAUGHTER

-And we all know that Abdul's missus will be checking his Facebook page.

-LAUGHTER

Cos the magic of the kiss is lost on adults. It is.

We've lost the magic of the kiss. If I kiss my wife now, my kids think we've had a row.

That's not what we do. Kissing used to be an innocent thing. We used to have kiss-chase

where you chase a girl and you kiss her. You can play kiss-chase as a kid.

You can't as an adult. It results in a restraining order.

LAUGHTER

But kissing inevitably leads to something else.

It's just that, as a teenager, you're not always sure what that is.

The first knowledge of the birds and the bees came from the playground,

which is always terrifying, cos you just hear the most ridiculous things.

This little thing comes out, worms around

and it'll be in her and she has babies.

Definitely through school and friends and telly.

Certainly not from my mum and dad.

They left it to us to visualise it from growing up on a farm.

I remember my mum trying to tell me about the birds and the bees once

but I just kind of blocked it out.

I had a very sexually-aware rabbit

who not only did it with rabbits, but did it with the guinea pigs and with our legs.

Losing my virginity lasted about two seconds.

I was in no rush, you know. And I thought,

"I'll wait for the right girl to come along" and I was waiting...

-We just got together...

-..and waiting...

-There was a big build-up to this one night.

We did what we thought we were supposed to do, and that was it!

-Never really quite happened.

-The sex was awful.

No male ever learned to treat a woman fully.

You're either really bad or sex is not what it's made up to be, so I finished with him.

APPLAUSE

There was something there about a rabbit.

Now, rabbits have got a different context in the modern day, but I think the lady,

if you notice, when she was talking about the rabbit,

-not only was she tickling her dog...

-LAUGHTER

-That's OK, she lived on a farm.

-LAUGHTER

But she seemed quite scared that the rabbit might actually be coming for her.

-LAUGHTER

-Just look at this.

I had a very sexually aware rabbit... LAUGHTER

..who not only did it with the rabbits, but did it with the guinea pigs and with our legs.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

-Like there's a man in a rabbit suit.

-LAUGHTER

But sex is... It's just different now. Kids are just more aware.

They are just more sexually aware. I remember watching Charlie's Angels

and liking it, but not knowing why.

The big thing was The Sweeney. We used to sit in and watch The Sweeney

and it was always brilliant on The Sweeney

cos you knew the burglar's wife would always get her tits out.

-LAUGHTER

-And sex education was different, as well.

We didn't have the internet. We had the Freeman's catalogue. That was our sex education.

Which probably explains why so many men of my age are now into mail-order brides.

LAUGHTER

That's what happened. We used to sit behind the couch. We loved looking at women in their undies

talking to other women. It was a wonderful thing.

And I spent all my youth hoping one day to meet a woman in a girdle.

LAUGHTER

But also, we were ignorant about it. I went to a Catholic school

and we were taught that Mary one day rode on a donkey

-and then ended up getting pregnant.

-LAUGHTER

When the school went on a day trip to Blackpool, none of the girls would go on the beach.

-LAUGHTER

-But as a teenager,

the most embarrassing thing was sex education in school.

In our school, what they did is they split up the boys and the girls.

I don't know what they told the girls. They gave us sex education

by putting us in a room with the maths teacher.

The man who probably had less sex than anyone else in the staff room.

They put us in a room and he proceeded to put a condom on a banana.

-LAUGHTER

-How useless is that?

To put a condom on a banana? Not only is it useless,

it's very confusing for a 14-year-old boy

when you're also being told that you've got to have five a day.

LAUGHTER

Cos as a teenage boy, your life is dominated by the rites of passage.

As a teenage boy, you always remember your first kiss,

you always remember your first proper fight,

you always remember your first sexual experience,

or as we put it, you always remember your first day trip to Rhyl.

LAUGHTER

But everyone remembers their first time.

Can anyone remember their first time, though, being as good as this?

The door opens and it's Eileen.

And she came up to me and put her arms around me

and I put my arms around her.

It was like putting my arms round a velvet glove.

Then something happened to me below and I thought, "Well, I've got to use it, whatever it is".

So I used it. And we're rolling around on the floor making this wonderful love.

It must have been for three quarters of an hour.

It was so, so wonderful.

She said, "George, you are a compassionate lover."

And she loved it. And so did it, I tell you.

All over my body was tingling.

It was marvellous. You want to try it some time.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

What I love about that clip is it shows that sex isn't just for the youth.

All those people who think that we're doing mad, crazy things,

your granny has already done them. Your granny did them first.

In fact, your granny probably did them with a GI for a packet of powdered egg.

-LAUGHTER

-So that was growing up. Tonight, Britain has taught me

that some people never quite get over their first kiss,

-particularly if it was with their mate.

-LAUGHTER

There's a chance you can fulfil your childhood dreams and own a sweet shop.

-And that at 73, old men make very compassionate lovers.

-LAUGHTER

See you next week with some more lessons from the people of Britain.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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